The invention relates to an air conditioning system for a room, more particularly in buildings for cultivating plants or housing animals, provided with one or more heating/cooling elements of an open structure and one or more fans for circulating air along the heating/cooling elements.
In green houses for cultivating plants and buildings for housing animals, such as for instance in chicken runs or green houses for vegetables, the problem arises that in relative colder areas on earth the building or the green house has to be heated at least during a part of the year, and in relatively warmer areas on earth the problem arises that the building has to be cooled during at least a part of the year.
In green houses for cultivating vegetables or in buildings for housing animals, for instance in colder areas such as The Netherlands, England, Germany and other countries on similar latitude, the green house or the building has to be heated during at least a part of the year and for this purpose one uses for instance hot air generators, which blow on one spot heated air in the green house, or one uses conduits, mostly extending throughout the length of the green house, through which the heating medium flows. Such heating systems have the drawback that hot air is taken in, generated respectively in the green house in a relatively limited volume in a relatively limited area and that because of this relatively considerable variations of temperature can be present in a green house.
In green houses and buildings in relatively warm areas, for instance in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Indonesia, etc., it will often be necessary to cool the internal space of the building or the green house to prevent the interior temperature from increasing too much because of heat accumulation. The cooling systems used to date all have the drawback that in a relatively small volume and in a relatively small area cool air is generated or blown in, so that also here considerable temperature gradients in the building or green house can occur. Other known cooling systems have the further drawback that for cooling large quantities of water have to be evaporized, at which the evaporized water is blown off in the atmosphere, which is a considerable drawback in particular in areas in which water is relatively rare. Furthermore such cooling systems function insufficiently at a higher humidity of the air, by which the field of application of this cooling by evaporation is limited.
In both cases the further problem is known that the relative humidity of the air in the building has preferably to be controlled within predetermined limits. For this purpose separate devices have to be used, which encompasses additional costs for mounting and service as well as further energy costs.